


Keep Her Close

by shewritesall



Series: Romanogers Short Stories [18]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-16 06:03:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18685591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shewritesall/pseuds/shewritesall
Summary: The five times Steve finds Natasha in his arms and the one time he finds himself in Natasha's arms instead.





	Keep Her Close

_ One _

_ Steve ran down an alley, jumping behind the building as a shower of bullets chased after him.  He pressed himself against the wall, breathing heavily as he waited for the bullets to stop. He turned to look at Natasha and his mind froze when he realised she wasn’t beside him.  She had been right at his side before he’d ducked into the alley, where could she have gone? _

_ He peered his head around the corner as the bullets stopped and spotted Natasha lying face down on the ground.  The gunmen were nowhere to be seen, so Steve shot out from behind the building and dropped down beside Natasha. He rolled her over, choking on a breath of air when he noticed three bullet holes in her chest.  He tried to feel for her pulse, but couldn’t find anything. _

_ “Natasha!”  he yelled, shaking her roughly in hopes of waking her up.  She didn’t react and he quickly tried to find her pulse again.  He put his ear to her mouth, but she wasn’t breathing. “No! Natasha, wake up.  Come on, Nat. Get up!” he screamed, starting CPR. It did nothing but cover his hands and arms in her blood as he continued to scream for her to wake up.  He kept trying, pressing harder and harder until he was sure he’d broken every rib possible. “Come on, Natasha,” he cried, dropping his hands from her chest and looking down at her still body.  “Please wake up.” _

Steve woke up suddenly, inhaling sharply and tensing up when he didn’t immediately recognise the room he was in.  He blinked to adjust to the dark light then remembered he was on a mission with Natasha. Natasha! He almost flew out of the bed to find her but stopped short when he realised something was on top of his right arm and part of his chest.  He looked down to find Natasha curled up against him, her red hair splayed across his chest and her soft breaths hitting his neck.

Steve breathed out in relief, wrapping his arm around her back a little tighter.  She let out a quiet moan and hugged him but didn’t wake up. He looked down at her, watching her sleep peacefully until he felt his eyelids drooping.  He let his eyes close and focused to the sound of her breathing until he fell asleep again, subconsciously thankful their hotel ended up only having a one bedroom available.

 

_ Two _

Steve loved their movie nights.  Natasha had always visited his floor at least twice a week when he’d lived in the Tower and once he’d moved out, she came by almost every day.  He knew his apartment wasn’t exactly on her way from SHIELD to the Tower, but that didn’t change the fact she came by so often. A couple months after they’d become partners at SHIELD, Natasha had started a movie night, insisting it was necessary for him to be able to understand the modern world.  It had been nearly three years now and Steve was pretty sure he’d become accustomed to the modern world at this point, but their movie nights were still a weekly occurrence.

“I brought caramel corn!”  Natasha announced, holding a bag of popcorn up proudly as she walked into the apartment.  Steve smiled at her as she came into the kitchen and set it on the counter. “The farmers market down the street was still open, so I stopped by to grab fruit and they had caramel corn!”

“Must be our lucky day,”  Steve said. Natasha nodded, reaching across the counter for a fortune cookie.  Steve rolled his eyes but let her take it, handing her the box of chow mein noodles he’d gotten for her.  She grinned and opened it up immediately, sliding onto the stool beside her. She grabbed a pair of chopsticks and dug into the noodles, watching as Steve grabbed his own box of food and some chopsticks.  It had taken many, many nights of flinging and dropping Chinese food on the floor, but Natasha had finally managed to teach Steve how to use chopsticks.

“I was thinking we should watch the  _ Ocean’s _ series again,”  Natasha told him, reaching for the box of rice and taking a bite.  “I know we watched  _ Ocean’s 11 _ and  _ Ocean’s 12 _ , but you still need to see  _ Ocean’s 13 _ and the new  _ Ocean’s 8 _ .  I guess that’s not technically watching them again, but whatever.”

“I’m down for whatever,”  Steve said. Natasha rolled her eyes and stole a bite of food from Steve’s box.  He didn’t fight her, trading her for a bite of her noodles, and they quickly finished their food.  Natasha found a bowl for the caramel corn while Steve threw away their empty boxes of Chinese food and put the leftover rice in a Tupperware container.  When he was done, he found Natasha sitting in his living room, feet up on the coffee table and caramel corn in her lap as she searched for  _ Ocean’s 13 _ .

Steve took a seat beside her and she immediately pulled her feet under her and leaned against him.  He took a handful of caramel corn and tossed it in his mouth. When Natasha had found the movie, she set the remote on the coffee table then sat back.

They were halfway through  _ Ocean’s 8 _ when Steve realised Natasha was having a hard time staying awake.  He frowned as her head dropped to her chest then snapped back up for the third time.  She hadn’t had a solo mission recently, but he supposed she had been staying at the office later and later.  Tonight had been the first night in two weeks she’d made it to his house before 9:00PM.

“Nat, we can finish this later if you want to sleep,”  he told her quietly. She shook her head, watching as Sandra Bullock and Cate Blanchett talked on the TV screen.

“I’m okay,”  she murmured, laying her head on Steve’s shoulder and curling closer.

“You’re exhausted,”  he said. She shrugged but didn’t say anything else.  Steve continued to watch the movie only to discover Natasha was fast asleep on his chest ten minutes later.  He moved his arm from the back of the couch to around her shoulders and pulled her legs across his lap. She blinked, squinting up at him before falling right back asleep.  Steve kept his arms around her for the rest of the movie, only partially paying attention to the heist that was taking place on the screen. When the movie finished, he carefully picked Natasha up and carried her to his guest room.  He laid her on the bed and pulled the covers up to her chin like he knew she liked. He went back to the living room to turn off the TV and take the empty caramel corn bowl to the kitchen. Before he went to his own room, he ducked into the guest room to check on Natasha who was hugging a pillow tightly.  He smiled and closed her door halfway before walking to the opposite end of the hall and climbing into his own bed for the night.

 

_ Three _

If Steve was really being honest, heir mission had fallen apart a few days ago.  They’d been caught tailing a high end mob boss and ended up being captured. The moment they realised they’d been discovered, it was already too late to call back up and there were too many people with guns to risk fighting their way out.  Steve had tried, but he’d gotten distracted when a gun went off behind him and he couldn’t find Natasha. His distraction had given the enemy enough time to hit him in the back of the head hard enough to make him stumble. Natasha had appeared then, strangling a man from above, but his vision had gone black seconds after he’d made eye contact with her.

That had been at least four days ago and now they were tied up in a dark room.  The vinyl floor was cold and hard and there weren’t any windows in the room. There was a lightbulb hanging from the ceiling, providing just enough light Steve could clearly see all the bruises that covered him and Natasha.

God, they both looked bad.  He hadn’t seen himself in a mirror, but if the dried blood on his forehead and the throbbing in his back was anything to go by, he was bruised in more places than just his arms and legs.  Natasha, on the other hand, looked like Godzilla’s punching bag. She’d been given a black eye within the first few hours of their capture and it hadn’t gotten better. She was more purple and black than Steve could have imagined possible.  Every part of her was covered in bruises or cuts. They’d taken her away for questioning an hour or so ago and returned her unconscious and with one more cut across her cheek. Steve had managed to stop the blood from the cut on her face, but he didn’t know how many more bruises she’d gotten.  As soon as they’d thrown her at his feet, he’d pulled her into his lap and protectively curled around her.

Natasha groaned and shifted in his arms, slowly moving her head to look up at him.  Steve smiled at her softly, brushing her hair out of her face. She let her head drop back down to his chest and melted further into his arms.

“You’ve been unconscious since they brought you back an hour ago,”  Steve told her quietly. Natasha didn’t move and Steve buried his face in her hair.  “I’m sorry,” he murmured.

“Don’t be,”  she replied, squeezing him a little tighter to reassure him.  “I know how to get us out of here now.”

 

_ Four _

Natasha loved the Barton kids, she really did.  She just didn’t appreciate how hard it was to put them to bed and get them to stay asleep.  Lila and Cooper were fine once they actually fell asleep unless they had a nightmare, but Nate was hard.  Natasha supposed she couldn’t really blame him; he wasn’t even a year old yet. However, she really just wanted to stay curled up in her warm bed with Steve and his hourly cries weren’t helping.

“Come on, baby,”  she cooed, bouncing him up and down as she walked around outside.  She hadn’t wanted him to wake up Lila and Cooper, but he’d continued to scream even downstairs, so her only other option was to take him outside.  “Sleep is wonderful. Everyone likes it.” Nathaniel just continued to cry and Natasha was beginning to feel like joining him.

“Hey,”  Steve said, stepping onto the porch.  Natasha jumped, not having heard him open the door.  He was still only in his boxers and was rubbing his eyes, but he held a bottle of warm milk in one hand and Natasha could swear that’s what angels looked like.  “Figured this might help,” he told her, handing her the bottle. Natasha gratefully took it and gave it to Nate. His crying immediately stopped and he hungrily sipped from the bottle.  Natasha sank onto the porch swing and Steve sat down beside her.

“I can’t believe I forgot about the bottle,”  she said, leaning against him as she watched Nate eat.

“You’re tired.  It’s understandable,”  he replied. They went silent as Nate finished the bottle and began to nod off to sleep.  Natasha held him up to burp him then cradled him gently as she walked back inside. Steve went right back upstairs while Natasha uncapped Nate’s bottle with one hand and put it in the sink to soak.

She carried Nate upstairs, carefully laying him down in his crib.  He clung to her tightly and she gently pried his fingers off of her.  He whimpered, but she ran her fingers over his face gently and hummed to keep him asleep.  Once she was sure he wouldn’t wake up, she slipped out of the room and down to the guest room.

Steve was barely awake when she got back and slipped under the covers.  He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her flush against his chest.  She smiled and curled around him happily, burying her face in his chest.

“Thank you for coming with me to babysit,”  she whispered. Steve just moaned and hugged her tighter.  “I love you too.”

 

_ Five _

Steve woke up to a warm body pressed against his own.  He glanced down to see long red hair covering Natasha’s face.  Her naked body was warm against his and he couldn’t help the smile that came to his face.  They’d been on the run for almost a year now and hadn’t had much alone time at all. Sam and Wanda were always around, but when they visited Wakanda, they all had their own rooms.  Of course, after their first visit, T’Challa hadn’t provided Natasha with her own room. She hadn’t used it a single night and ever since then, she’d stayed in Steve’s room every time they came.

It was nice to be able to sleep in and not worry about someone recognising them for a week.  Steve didn’t have to worry about his face being plastered on the TV while he walked around town and Natasha didn’t have to panic about her red hair being too recognisable.  He’d managed to convince her not to dye it so far, but he had the feeling the red wouldn’t last much longer. Especially since the reason they’d needed to make a hasty trip to Wakanda was because Ross had found them.

“Steve?”  Natasha moaned, pulling herself closer to Steve.  He brushed her long hair out of her face and she blinked up at him.

“Hey, baby,”  he murmured softly.  She smiled sleepily and buried her face back in his chest.  She fell back asleep a minute later and Steve looked up at the ceiling happily.  He twirled her hair around his fingers and rested his other hand low on her back.  Her skin was warm and smooth under his touch and he couldn’t help but think about just how perfect this was.  He wouldn’t mind staying on the run from 117 countries for the rest of his life as long as Natasha stayed with him the entire time.

 

_ Plus One _

Natasha couldn’t sleep.  Thanos had wiped out half the universe only two days ago and she still couldn’t wipe out the image of people disappearing from her memory.  She’d tried to sleep right after the battle, her body too tired to function any longer, only to wake up from a terrible nightmare an hour later.  Ever since then, she’d been trying to avoid sleep as much as possible. That didn’t stop her from trying to get the others to sleep, which led her to be lying in bed with Steve sound asleep beside her.

Natasha was struggling to keep her eyes open, the dark room and warm covers making it hard to stay awake when Steve’s grip on her became suddenly tighter.  It wasn’t uncomfortably tight, but she could tell something was wrong. As if sensing her thoughts, Steve began to murmur unintelligibly into her ear.

“Steve?”  she asked quietly, rolling back so she could look up at him.  He continued to murmur, his voice getting louder with each word.  “Steve, wake up,” she said, shaking him gently. His face contorted into one of horror and he yelled out in his sleep.  “Steve!” she yelled, shaking him harshly. His eyes snapped open and he looked around the room in a panic. His gaze landed on Natasha and he immediately engulfed her in a hug.  She wrapped her arms around his neck, running her hands through his hair and whispering reassurances in Russian.

“You disappeared,”  he said, gasping for air as she slowly laid them back down.  Steve curled around her and she let him bury his face in her chest.

“I’m right here,”  she said, holding him protectively.  He began to cry but she kept a tight hold on him.  “We’re okay,” she told him, rubbing his back.

“I can’t lose you too,”  he told her quietly. Natasha kissed his forehead.

“You won’t,”  she promised. They both stayed awake for the rest of the night, Natasha holding Steve tightly while he tried to reassure himself she really hadn’t disappeared.  In the morning, they would both continue to make sure the world continued to turn, but until then, Natasha would make sure neither one of them had any more nightmares.


End file.
